When I was a kid we'd go visit my great-grandfather and great-grandmother every summer.

We had to get up extra early to beat the heat and humidity of Hong Kong,

an impossible task, put on our good clothes that made us sweat even more in the heat, and catch a

taxi for my grandmother's flat up into the mountains above the city. The taxi would drop us outside

this ancient looking stone wall with a twisted metal gate.

A man with his two stinky but friendly dogs would greet us in Cantonese and let us in.

Picking our way over a crumbling concrete path, we'd make our way down to a spot right against

the crooked wall.

This was the oldest part of the cemetery, my family's cemetery, for mixed-race Chinese people,

and it was where my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were buried.

The other graves in the cemetery, even recent graves, were small, compact, and already

cracking or sitting at odd angles. They had been lifted by roots in the shifting earth

below. But following the path to my great-grandmother's and

great-grandfather's graves was like stepping into a bubble. Suddenly the overgrown

path would give way to gleaming white marble.

Perfectly level steps leading to an expanse of smoothness under our feet.

We'd cross what looked like a shiny dance floor, a floor I could easily slide across in my dress up

shoes and into a white marble alcove.

This is where Sir Robert and Lady Edith waited. It was and still is like a bright shining parlor in a moldering cemetery.

No matter how many years pass, at this point graves are nearly 100 years old my great-grandparents

monument always looks fresh and manicured the city I believe maintains it as a kid I knew these graves were special,

but I wasn't exactly sure why.

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